NTEU Files Suit
U.S. Intern Program Called Union Dodge

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

The National Treasury Employees' Union filed a lawsuit Jan. 24 alleging that Federal hiring regulations from the Office of Personnel Management are being used to circumvent collectively bargained hiring procedures.

COLLEEN KELLEY: Feds doctor intern program.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeks to eliminate the OPM rules covering the Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP) - a program implemented on an interim basis in 2000 and made a permanent hiring authority for agencies upon final OPM regulations issued in 2005.

An Unfair Circumvention

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley, in a written statement announcing the suit, said that in recent years, "the FCIP has become the hiring method of choice for many Federal agencies, often at the expense of fair and open competition." She charged that in some instances, the program's use has reduced opportunities for promotion for existing staff.

Linda M. Springer, director of OPM, called the lawsuit unfortunate. "In light of the pending departure of hundreds of thousands of employees to retirement, the Federal Government needs every available tool to ensure we have an effective workforce, including the FCIP, which brings in approximately 10,000 employees each year," she said.

According to NTEU, national agencies used the FCIP program to hire about 400 employees in 2000. By Fiscal Year 2005, NTEU said, the number had grown to more than 11,000. During the same period, the number of employees hired through competitive procedures declined by approximately the same number, the lawsuit says.

The Internal Revenue Service has started filling key positions like Revenue Officers and Revenue Agents using the FCIP.

Pushed Aside for Grads

Frank Heffler, president of NTEU Chapter 47 in New York, said many long-term employees working out of IRS offices around the city were being denied promotions to higher pay and seniority levels because managers were hiring grads right out of college through FCIP.

"They are being brought in with a guarantee that they'll make it to G-13 on the Federal pay scale, while my long-term and more-senior workers with 15 to 20 years on the job have to compete with each other for those spots," said Mr. Heffler. "It's happening nationwide, not just here in New York. It's management's way of circumventing the whole Civil Service system."

Other Federal agencies that have embraced the program include the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, which since 2003 has used FCIP authority as its exclusive means of hiring new CBP Officers, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which has begun filling most of its entry-level positions using the FCIP.

'Frontal Assault on Rules'

The FCIP program was designed as a limited, special-focus hiring effort with the aim of providing structured, two-year training and development "internships" as a strategic recruiting tool.

According to NTEU's suit, however, OPM placed very few restrictions on the program. Its use has increased so dramatically, the union contends, "that it amounts to a frontal assault on the competitive hiring examination process" as the primary method of hiring for competitive service positions.

Under FCIP, agencies are allowed to hire "interns" for almost any entry-level position; these vacancies are not required to be posted for internal candidates, nor are they required to be posted on OPM's external electronic job listings Web site.

After those hired under FCIP authority serve a two or three-year probation - doubling or tripling the one-year probationary period for competitive hires - agencies may non-competitively convert those employees to permanent competitive status.

A Management Tool

"Besides the longer probation, FCIP authority is attractive to management," Ms. Kelley said, "because it allows agencies broad discretion to target recruitment narrowly - for example, at college campuses - and then to choose among applicants without having to conform to established rating and ranking procedures."

NTEU maintains that the result undermines merit system principles, which require that selection and advancement in the Federal service be determined "on the basis of relative ability, knowledge and skills, after fair and open competition which assures that all receive equal opportunity."

While Civil Service law allows for exceptions from competitive examination and selection rules, it stipulates such steps are to be taken only when "justified by conditions of good administration." NTEU in its lawsuit claims no justification exists.